


you laughed, I cried

by crookedspoon



Series: SladeRobin Week [2]
Category: DCU (Comics), Deathstroke (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Caning, Crying, F/M, Kinktober 2018, M/M, Possessive Behavior, Rape/Non-con Elements, bastinado, renegade arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 10:10:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16490588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon
Summary: In which Slade punishes Dick for something he can't even remember doing (fortunately – or unfortunately – for all involved, Slade has video evidence).





	you laughed, I cried

**Author's Note:**

  * For [freakedelic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freakedelic/gifts).



> For "Caning" at badthingshappenbingo, "Possessive" at sladerobinweek and "Sadism/Masochism" + "Feet" at kinktober2018.
> 
> Thanks again, freaks, for letting me talk to you about this! I know this doesn't do the idea justice, but I hope it's not too terrible.

His consciousness slowly returns, called home by pained cries and the resounding crack of a whip. Dick's head shoots up, locating the source of the sounds. He wants to lift himself into a crouch, but can't move. He's shackled and bare, bent over something like a vaulting buck.

He's racing through his memories, trying to piece together how he might have ended up here, when he hears it again. Another strike, another stifled cry. Goosepimples shiver across his skin.

Not a whip. Something less flexible.

"Forty-seven," a voice says, reedy and shaking, ready to break.

Across the selectively lighted room, a female figure is hanging from the ceiling, arms tied with leather strips to a hook overhead. She stands with her back to him, head bowed forward, panting, but none of these details matter as much as the red gashes across her shoulders, buttocks and thighs.

Another smack resounds off the walls he can't see. They're bathed in darkness, making the space seem bigger than it is. The girl's arms pull on their constraints and her knees press together, away from the pain.

"Forty-eight," she sobs.

"Stop," Dick calls into the eerie silence that falls, filled with nothing more than the elevated rise and fall of their breathing.

Fuck. He feels trapped. No amount of struggling reveals any weakness in his shackles. Not that he'd entertained any hope of Slade making a mistake, but Dick's been trained to exploit any weakness, to find his way out of any predicament.

With Slade, there is no way out.

"Grayson." Slade says conversationally, as if his daughter weren't next to him, shaking with the pain he inflicted. "Finally awake, I see."

He's stroking a thin wooden cane along his palm, a cane that's flecked with Rose's blood.

"What are you doing?" Dick demands despite his vulnerable position. "Let her go. Let us both go."

Slade ignores him, instead focusing on Rose. He tilts her chin up, caressing it almost lovingly. From where he is, Dick can only see Slade's eyepatch but the vibe he gives off is intense.

"I'm so sorry, daddy," Rose sobs, eyes staring imploringly at her father. Tears have carved wet runnels down her face and neck. The floor beneath her is spotted with little pools of tears and sweat.

"I know, kitten." Slade swipes his thumb across Rose's glistening cheek, almost soothingly. Yet he can't keep up the charade. "I hope you've learned your lesson. Don't disappoint me again."

He grabs her elbow and forces her to turn around. Dick averts his gaze. It doesn't mean much after what he's just witnessed, but neither of them chose to be here and he can afford her that much dignity.

Slade crosses over to him in measured steps, his footfalls ominous in the breathy quiet of the room.

"As for you," Slade says and points his cane at Dick, then tipping his head up with it. "Are you ready to take your punishment?"

"Punishment? For what?"

"Don't play coy with me, Grayson," Slade growls and for the first time since waking, Dick feels danger prickle his skin. "I trusted you to _train_ my daughter. Not to sleep with her."

Behind him, Rose starts sobbing again.

"What the fuck are you on about, Slade?"

Dick's stomach ties itself into knots. Is that what he was hurting Rose over? Dick never so much as touched her and yet Slade seems convinced that he did. Did he? Surely, he'd remember that. Wouldn't he? Try as he might, he can't scrape together more than the images of training Rose in the gym. Is Slade trying to gaslight him or is Dick missing something? What would he get out of that? Some sick amusement for sure, but that has never been his main motivator.

"This isn't you then?"

A large screen on the wall to his left suddenly flickers to life, showing surprisingly hi-def footage of what Dick can only describe as an intimate act between two people. One with a shock of dark hair, the other with flowing white locks, bodies moving rhythmically, their fingers interlaced.

Dick feels cold. How is this possible?

He wouldn't put faking a video past Slade, but surely he wouldn't use his own daughter in this way. Dick wants to believe that this man has _some_ kind of boundaries. Even if he doesn't, Dick wonders again what Slade would stand to gain from this.

"You know it's not very healthy to spy on your own daughter like that, right?"

Dick should be appalled, but unless Slade has a secret record collection of Billie Holiday, nothing about the man surprises him. Though, come to think of it, Dick would more readily believe in this hypothetic record collection than whatever Slade's trying to pull now. 

"I'm trying to protect her, but I didn't think I'd need to protect her from the likes of you. I didn't think corrupting a minor would be compatible with your moral code. Imagine what Daddy Bats had to say about that."

Dick's stomach twists again. He doesn't want to think about Bruce, not now, not in this situation.

Ignoring the video as if it didn't exist, Slade steps around him, dragging the tip of his cane over Dick's naked shoulder, down his side, over the slope of his ass. He taps it lightly. Dick's muscles jump.

"I expect you to count," he says and _thwacks_ Dick across the bottom.

Pain flares out across his back and legs. Dick exhales through his nose. He can't believe this is happening.

"Well?" Slade prompts, bouncing the cane off Dick's thighs. When Dick doesn't respond, it bounces lower. Dick's knees and ankles are bound, too. He's been maneuvered into a tabletop shape, shins and back parallel to the ground.

Slade taps his way down Dick's calves, to the shackles around his ankles and to the balls of his feet. The light rapping against his soles tickles and Dick has to clamp his teeth together so he wouldn't start giggling. Something about Slade's mood feels dangerously off and Dick doesn't want to aggravate him any further.

Slade gives him another strike across his bottom, just below the last. Dick strains against his cuffs, as if hoping to break them through sheer force of will.

"That's two," Slade says when Dick continues to keep his mouth shut. "Did no one ever teach you your numbers?"

That last question is punctuated with a strike to the soles of Dick's feet. Dick's toes curl and his spine arches as much it can against the surface he's draped across.

"I'm listening."

Another strike, in the crease between his buttock and thigh. Dick flinches. He can already feel the welts rising, heat spreading through his body as if trying to burn through his bonds.

This time, Dick can't help the cry of pain when Slade hits his soles again. His knees jerk inward, trying to pull his feet away, but they are locked in place.

Perhaps Dick ought to reevaluate what's more important: his pride or the use of his feet. Slade could cripple him easily like this, and Dick can't imagine a life in which he can't run, can't use his feet to leap off the ground and soar. He's no Oracle; the abstracting safety of a computer screen holds no merits for him. He needs to be in the middle of the action, needs to direct it from the very center of the scene. That is what he's best at.

Dick swallows.

"Three," he grits out, shame roiling in his gut.

"Good boy," Slade coos, caressing the unmarked front of Dick's thigh with his cane. "You're learning."

Dick balks at the mocking praise but counts every strike after that. The pauses grow longer with every hit, and Slade more impatient. If Dick isn't quick enough for his liking, it earns him another thwack across his feet, varying in intensity.

Dick braces himself against the pain, closes his lips and breathes through it. He doesn't want to give Slade the satisfaction of knowing he's hurting Dick. He's not. Dick is used to pain, he's survived worse, and he's going to survive this.

It's the anticipation that's the worst.

Slade is humming as though he were doing nothing more strenuous than taking a stroll through the woods – as though he’s _enjoying_ himself, which, come to think of it, he might be – and the length of his cane strokes along his spine, before sloping down his hips. Dick hisses and tries to crawl away. The merest brush over his sensitive backside sets another cascade of heat in motion.

"Focus," Slade calls him back with a particularly sharp smack. "If your feet aren't enough of an incentive, maybe this will help."

Dick cries out when Slade grabs his ass and spreads his cheeks apart. Dick's alarm bells have his spine go stiff.

No, no, no. Not _there,_ Dick thinks, but the blow has already landed, a searing line from his crack down to his balls. Dick _howls._

"S-stop," he sobs, no longer able to keep his voice from wobbling.. " _Please._ "

"Giving up already, Grayson? We have barely even begun."

Dick has never felt this vulnerable, this _exposed,_ before in his life. Slade's hand is still resting heavy and warm on his ass, holding him open as if contemplating whether to—

Dick cries out again, but it sounds lewd even to his own ears. Slade is kneading his abused flesh and it only serves to heighten his awareness of the pain Dick feels.

When Slade leaves off, Dick is relieved.

But not for long.

His backside stings. It has become a landscape made of fire. Every strike hurts that much worse than the one before. Slade would wait for him to settle down and breathe evenly again before striking him, or he would take him by surprise with a quick succession of hits. 

And every time Dick would make Slade wait to hear the correct number, he's afraid he might be taking too long. That Slade would use this as an excuse to expose him again. He is shaking so hard it makes speaking an even tougher chore. 

"Twenty-eight," he all but curses through his teeth, but it does come out in time.

Across from him, Rose is weeping softly, burying her face into her arm and whispering "I'm sorry" and "I didn't mean to" over and over. "This wasn't what I wanted" affects him most of all.

Hazily, Dick wonders if he forced himself on her. The video doesn't indicate anything consistent with that suspicion. Perhaps she means this situation that they're in. He also wonders if could she have forced herself on him, given him something that would have erased his memories but left his body responsive. 

If Dick could consider this in his current state, Slade would have thought of that a long time ago. And if he still chooses to take out his perversions on Dick instead of investigating the matter thoroughly, it's on him and not on Dick.

 _It's okay,_ he mouths at Rose, trying to reassure her that none of this is her fault – or if it is, that he doesn't blame her – but she doesn't see him.

Slade seems to have noticed and strikes Dick's feet again. Hard, this time.

A sharp line of pain zips straight through his legs up his spine to the crown of his head. He bucks against his shackles, trying to jerk away as best he can. Which is nowhere at all.

He's completely and utterly at Slade's mercy.

A shiver wracks Dick's frame. Few things are more terrifying than that – so why did Dick feel a thrill pulse through him?

Slade seems to have noticed that, too.

"Enjoying yourself, circus boy?" he asks and taps the cane against the underside of Dick's cock – which, to his great shock, is undeniably _hard_ and straining. "Guess I shouldn't be surprised you'd be getting off on this. With a mentor like yours, what else could you grow up to be if not a masochist?"

Dick's first instinct is to protest and come to Bruce's defense, but any words he might have uttered die on his tongue when Slade strikes him again. Dick is horrified to hear himself moan despite the flare of pain.

That's what scares him the most: that he might like what Slade is doing to him. 

"Tell me, Grayson." Slade chuckles. He actually _chuckles._ Dick has been wondering why Slade never questioned the authenticity of what he saw on the tape. But now he has the sneaking suspicion that it played right into Slade's hands, that Slade used it as an excuse to make Dick suffer. "Did Daddy Bats ever punish you like this? Did you sing to him as sweetly as you're singing to me now?"

Another moan drops unbidden from his mouth as the cane hits his ass. He's not thinking about Bruce right now, he's just _not._ He couldn't handle his disapproval on top of it all.

Dick is quivering, sucking in air through his teeth and letting the tears fall hot from his cheeks. He can think of nothing but the red gashes striping Rose's skin and how his own must be starting to become an ever stronger reflection of hers.

He's counted forty-three lashes so far and Slade shows no sign of stopping. 

Dick is exhausted, too drained of energy to even struggle anymore. He no longer flinches when the cane slaps against him. The pain is bright and sharp for only a moment until it sizzles to a throbbing that prickles through his skin. He feels himself melting, and when the next strike hits, his tongue won't move around the vowels.

He is sobbing quietly, already anticipating the sting on the soles of his feet, but not finding it in him to care anymore.

The sting, however, never comes.

Dick heaves a shuddering sigh of relief. 

Perhaps too soon.

The cane hits his balls this time, lightly compared to his usual treatment, but after after what he's been through, everything is too much.

"Slade, _please,_ " he attempts again. He _hurts,_ every nerve end is on fire, and he can't take much more than this.

But Slade ignores him. Another strike.

The pressure within him mounts. He is so far out of his depth, he doesn't know how to get out of this predicament.

He's panicking now, grasping at every thought that comes to his mind. Surely there has got to be something he can use.

"You were right," Dick grits out. His best bet is to appeal to Slade's ego. When Slade stills, he feels encouraged to go on, no matter how hard it is to speak through the lump in his throat and the ugly sobs cutting his breath short. "I shouldn't have slept with Rose. Shouldn't have broken our trust. But you know what? I don't care. I wanted her for myself. So I seduced her. To get her away from you. She deserves better than you."

Dick feels filthy for even saying as much, but it seems to do the trick. Slade's withdraws with him skin and Dick hisses, fresh tears spilling from his eyes. His relief is palpable but short-lived.

"He was using you after all, Rose. Did you consider that at all when you went to bed with him?"

Slade walks around him, carving a line up Dick's back and Dick gasps when Slade grabs a fistful of hair, bending his head back.

Slade's expression is wild, far from his usually composed smugness. Dick senses he might have gone too far, but that thought fills him less with fright than it does with giddiness. Dick's breath is coming in short, sharp bursts, his heart is pounding in his throat, and his imagination is running wild with images of having it slit, or fucked, or both.

Dick trembles in the face of his own depravity.

Slade kneels down to be eye-level with Dick, but not before Dick spotted the huge bulge in his pants. For all his talk earlier, he is just as much, if not more so, affected by the pain he inflicted upon Dick, by having him at his mercy and being able to exact punishment as he saw fit.

"You're finally beginning to think like a bad guy, Grayson." Slade's smirk nearly splits his face in half and Dick thinks he's never seen anything scarier. The Joker has nothing on him. "Maybe I was wrong to judge you so soon. There may be hope for you yet."

It's not an encouragement Dick likes to hear, because it speaks to his loss of confidence in himself. Too many terrible things have happened because he'd been unable to stop them. This just adds one more to the list.

When Slade lets Dick's head go, it feels heavier than before, as if the darkness on his mind had a weight of its own. Dick's damp cheek rests on cool leather and he barely notices, nor cares that Slade removes the manacle around his right wrist.

"I'm sure you know how to go on from there."

Dick's freed wrist pulsates, skin chafed raw during his struggles. He knows he could free himself now, but he lets it hang. What's the point now?

Watching Slade move away from him, he feels strangely untethered, as if his foundation had been stripped from him. He can barely so much as twitch without sending a fresh wave of pain along his nerves, but it pales in comparison to the disgrace he feels.

Disgrace for feeling almost... disappointed. Slade is leaving him beaten and bloody, but not broken. Part of Dick would have been able to handle this situation better if Slade had pushed him beyond his boundaries. But he didn't, and Dick is left to feel the terror of his own desire.

It doesn't help that the video of him making love to Rose is still playing in the background. The sound is off – thankfully – but he catches a stray movement here or there from the corner of his eye: a touch, a kiss, a jolt of hips. 

He can't look. If he did, he'd be confronted with a dark part of himself he can't control. He should be able to remember something, at least in part, hazy bits that rise up from the blackness of his memory. It bothers him that he can't. It's bad enough that he appears to have abused his authority as her teacher, but to forget it ever happened is unforgivable.

Could he really have done this without knowing. What powers were at play here?

Even if Dick had all his wits together, he couldn't hazard a guess. Body snatchers? Clones? Multiversal twins? The possibilities are endless. 

"I still expect you to stay away from my daughter," Slade startles him out of his thoughts, "or I will make this look like a feather tickling to you."

Slade is helping Rose down, undoing the leather strips holding her stiff arms overhead and massaging them as he slowly settles them around his shoulders. He gathers her against his chest, careful to avoid her welts. Rose lets herself be cradled like a doll.

Dick groans. He wants to wipe the tears from his face but he can't summon the strength to lift his arm. Cold is seeping into his rubbery bones but not even it manages to make them solid again. The wounds on his thighs are beginning to close over, pulling at the irritated skin, and creating a blanket of pain that radiates outward in every direction. It's fine as long as he doesn't move. But to get off this horse, he will have to move sooner or later.

He's been worse off before and no stranger to patching himself up. Physical wounds are easy. Bones mend, skin heals. Relationships are harder.

There's no telling if he could ever look Rose in the eye again without needing to apologize for what he put her through. For what Slade put them both through.

Slade murmurs to her, too low for Dick to catch, and strokes her hair, as if trying to make her forget it was him who hurt her in the first place.

He pays Dick no mind as he vanishes into the darkness outside the circles of light, as if Dick had ceased to exist. For him, perhaps he had. For now.

Slade never stays away for long.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "S+ M (A Love Song)" by kidneythieves.
> 
> Yes, there's a reason Dick can't remember, but you're probably not going to enjoy it. So tread lightly and check out the tags in the "caught in the middle" series, as soon as there are additional works.


End file.
